NORRISTOWN >> Prosecutors cannot use an opinion by an anti-sexual violence organization to bolster their quest to allow 19 other alleged accusers to testify against actor Bill Cosby at his upcoming sexual assault retrial, a judge has ruled.

Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill ruled that the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) cannot file an “amicus curiae,” or so-called “friend of the court” brief, supporting District Attorney Kevin R. Steele’s request to introduce testimony from the 19 other women.

“There is no Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure that provides authority for a pretrial Amicus Curiae brief to be filed with the court,” O’Neill wrote in a one-page order available Tuesday.

O’Neill also said the prosecution team’s legal memorandum in support of its motion to admit the RAINN opinion “is hereby stricken and not to be filed of record.” The brief has not been made public.

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During a pretrial hearing last week, the judge turned down prosecutors’ repeated requests to enter RAINN’s opinion into the case. Prosecutors even had two RAINN lawyers seated in the courtroom ready to offer potential testimony.

At that time, O’Neill said he didn’t need “outsiders in an issue” that he has sole responsibility to decide. But he gave prosecutors until this week to file any supplemental motion to admit the evidence.

Cosby’s defense team adamantly opposed allowing RAINN’s third-party opinion to be submitted to the judge.

According to its website, RAINN is the largest non-profit anti-sexual violence organization that operates a national sexual assault hotline and offers programs to prevent sexual violence and to help survivors.

O’Neill could rule as early as this week on the prosecution’s request to allow 19 other women to testify against Cosby, who faces charges he had inappropriate sexual contact with one woman, Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, at his Cheltenham home after plying her with blue pills and wine sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004.

During the hearing last week, Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Jappe argued the testimony of the 19 women is “strikingly similar” to Constand’s claims and should be admissible as evidence against Cosby.

Jappe argued the testimony of the other accusers is relevant “to establish a common plan, scheme or design” for the jury and “to establish that an individual, who over the course of decades intentionally intoxicated women in a signature fashion and then sexually assaulted them while they were incapacitated, could not have been mistaken about whether or not Ms. Constand was conscious enough to consent to the sexual abuse.”

But defense lawyer Becky James called the allegations of the 19 other women “ancient accusations” that would be prejudicial and extremely unfair to Cosby. The 19 women alleged inappropriate incidents by Cosby occurred between 1965 and 1996.

James also suggested allowing 19 other alleged accusers to testify at a time when the current #MeToo movement against sexual harassment is sweeping the social climate would be unfair to Cosby.

James suggested the prosecution’s case “is so weak” that prosecutors are desperate to salvage it with the testimony of 19 other alleged accusers.

Many of the women, according to defense lawyers, did not come forward until more than a decade after the prosecution’s highly publicized 2005 investigation of Constand’s allegations.

O’Neill’s ruling is considered one of the major pretrial legal decisions in the Cosby case. Legal insiders believe the key to the prosecution’s case against Cosby is the admissibility of evidence involving alleged accusers who came forward after Constand’s allegations came to light.

During Cosby’s first trial last June on charges he sexually assaulted Constand, O’Neill allowed prosecutors to present the testimony of only one other accuser, or “prior alleged victim,” Kelley Johnson.

Johnson, 55, accused Cosby of engaging in sexual misconduct with her in 1996. Johnson testified she met Cosby around 1990 through her employment working as an assistant to Cosby’s personal appearance agent at the William Morris Agency.

At that time, Steele had asked the judge to allow a total of 13 other alleged Cosby accusers to testify at the first trial, but the judge ruled in February 2017 that 12 of the women could not testify.

After Cosby’s first trial ended in a mistrial last June, Steele sought a retrial and now is asking O’Neill to reconsider his earlier ruling and allow 19 other accusers to testify. Steele and Jappe argued a decision by a state court in a homicide case, “that was decided after” O’Neill’s February 2017 ruling, determined that certain “prior bad acts evidence” is admissible at a trial.

But the new defense team led by Los Angeles lawyer Thomas Mesereau argued O’Neill “recognized the impropriety” of such testimony when he excluded 12 other alleged accusers from the first trial. The defense lawyers argued that since then nothing has changed to make their testimony any more relevant or any less prejudicial.

William Henry Cosby Jr., as his name appears on charging documents, faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with allegations he had inappropriate sexual contact with Constand. Cosby has maintained his contact with Constand was consensual.